


Sand/Rotator

by TheFaye92



Category: Bleach
Genre: Closure, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Friendship, Love, Slight Taste of Despair, for me at least, i asked myself why i liked this series in the first place, this is the end product
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 19:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7946710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFaye92/pseuds/TheFaye92
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theirs was no flower: it was steel and smoke, blood and honor, certainty and conviction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand/Rotator

**Author's Note:**

> Speaking is not communication.

He could recall from memory the very moment he came to love her. Not the “kissy-huggy-syrupy-hold-my-hand-and-I-love-you” love. It was something deeper, something ancient and powerful and seldom understood by outsiders. It was the kind of love that had made prehistoric people first band together in caves and huddle together for warmth. That love is old, powerful, instinctual, _necessary_. There are words for it: friend, lover, soulmate—they fall short.   

He loved her the moment he came to trust her.

He trusted her on the night a monster was ripping through his house, terrorizing his family, her sword raised like a sliver of moonlight.

That night his world shattered and rearranged like a glass vase; shattered and then pieced together to make something new. Everything he had come to understand in fifteen years of life had slipped through his fingers like so many grains of sand…Life and death spun close enough to touch, to know each other. He had seen ghosts all his life. But he had always been able to distance himself—ghosts were abstract—like seeing a room through a keyhole. Crouched and peering through that keyhole, he had only seen a mere impression of what lay behind the door. With fate cleaving down on him, the door opened and he had stepped inside.

She had been in pain and yet her hands didn’t shake when she raised her sword. Her fingers locked tight around the silk wrapped hilt, teeth set hard in a keen, sharp grimace—almost as if she was amused at what hand destiny had dealt her that night—but in the end it was her eyes that made him trust her. Amethyst eyes stalwart, unwavering—an anchoring stone. He would come to rely on that gaze someday. She had said _“I can’t guarantee you’ll live”_ but he could tell by those gemstone eyes that she was sure of herself. Sure of him.

You don’t run yourself through on a hunch. You don’t trust someone who doesn’t trust you.

Steel between them, they had locked eyes and deep down he knew. _This girl_ , he recalled thinking—vaguely, like a memory with a memory— _this girl, you can trust._

When steel parted flesh, life and death met in duality within him and he was no longer of his world, but not wholly part of hers. It was putting the right key into the right lock—opening _that_ door. They built a love in seconds what most spend decades constructing. No words need be spoken. No promises made. The trust between them was a bridge, strong and unwavering. Enemies could set themselves against them, could buffer their bridge with typhoon winds and wrathful earthquakes and _it would stay standing_.   

Confidence inspired. Love nurtured in a matter of seconds. Theirs was no flower: it was steel and smoke, blood and honor, certainty and conviction. He loved her because she had done what others hadn’t, what they couldn’t: she had put a blade in his hand and let him trust her.

**Author's Note:**

> At the end of the day, Bleach was built on one very important relationship. The love between Ichigo and Rukia. This love isn’t necessarily romantic, (although I think it can be), its more powerful than that. 
> 
> One chapter does not undo fifteen years of subtext and purposely written poetry. It doesn’t spoil what was there for all of us to see. Although, I also subscribe to the idea that Kubo sabotaged his own work because if I were in that kind of situation, I think I’d be a little petulant with regards to my corporate masters.
> 
> I wrote this as a reminder to my fellow Ichiruki fans that Bleach started like this: One Boy, One Shinigami, a story of destiny begins. 
> 
> Be the Sand and find your Rotator.
> 
> Comments/kudos are always appreciated!


End file.
